Dr Liam Rooney

Research Associate

Strathclyde Institute of Pharmacy and Biomedical Sciences

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Personal statement

Dr Rooney is a Postdoctoral Researcher based at the Strathclyde Institute for Pharmacy and Biomedical Sciences. His research interests lie in the development and application of advanced optical imaging methods to the field of microbiology. Dr Rooney is involved in several ongoing research projects. He is currently funded by the Leverhulme Trust to research new manufacturing and characterisation methods for optical imaging, with the goal of democratising access and creating open hardware imaging solutions. He is also conducting ongoing research to understand the role of biofilm transport channels which he first identified during his PhD, developing 3D microbial culture platforms, and developing new imaging techniques for the life sciences. Aside from his research, Dr Rooney is heavily involved in various Learned Societies. He is the current Chair of the Royal Microscopical Society (RMS) Early Career Committee, a member of the RMS Life Sciences Committee, and of the RMS Council. Dr Rooney is also a Microbiology Society Champion and a Forging Futures Ambassador for the Scottish Universities Life Sciences Alliance (SULSA). He was awarded the Junior Medal for Microbiology by the Microbiology Society for his PhD research investigating biofilm structure using novel imaging methods and, more recently, 2023 SULSA Early Career Development Award which funds an ongoing collaboration with researchers at Columbia University, New York, USA.

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Research Interests

Dr Rooney is a Postdoctoral Researcher based at the Strathclyde Institute for Pharmacy and Biomedical Sciences. His research interests lie in the development and application of advanced optical imaging methods to the field of microbiology.

Dr Rooney is involved in several ongoing research projects. He is currently funded by the Leverhulme Trust to research new manufacturing and characterisation methods for optical imaging, to democratise access to high-performance microscopy and create open hardware imaging solutions. He is also conducting ongoing research to understand the role of biofilm transport channels which he first identified during his PhD, developing 3D microbial culture platforms, and developing new imaging techniques for the life sciences.

Aside from his research, Dr Rooney is heavily involved in various Learned Societies. He is the current Chair of the Royal Microscopical Society (RMS) Early Career Committee, a member of the RMS Life Sciences Committee, and the RMS Council. Dr Rooney is also a Microbiology Society Champion and a Forging Futures Ambassador for the Scottish Universities Life Sciences Alliance (SULSA). He was awarded the Junior Medal for Microbiology by the Microbiology Society for his PhD research investigating biofilm structure using novel imaging methods and, more recently, the 2023 SULSA Early Career Development Award which funds an ongoing collaboration with researchers at Columbia University, New York, USA.

Professional Activities

ELMI
Organiser
4/6/2024
Sensing Oxygen Concentrations in Biofilms: A route towards targeted biofilm therapies
Speaker
4/11/2023
Faculty of Science Breaking Barriers 2023
Contributor
24/10/2023
Mesoscopic Microbiology: Visualising bacteria across spatial scales
Speaker
10/8/2023
Sensing Across Scales: Quantifying the Oxygen Microenvironment in Biofilm Transport Channels to Inform Better Therapeutics
Speaker
25/7/2023
Investigating the fractal nature of channels within E. coli biofilms with altered cell phenotype
Contributor
25/7/2023

More professional activities

Projects

Fluorescent Drugs for Difficult Bugs: Engineering Fluorescent Antibiotics to Track Antibiotic Uptake and Resistance in Chronic Bacterial Infections.
Rooney, Liam (Principal Investigator) Lawson, Christopher (Co-investigator)
One of the greatest biomedical challenges is overcoming difficult-to-treat chronic infections while minimising and improving antibiotic usage. This extends to improving drug delivery and therapeutics for biofilms. The discovery of biofilm nutrient transport channels changed our understanding of how biofilms acquire external resources. Meanwhile, we developed a streamlined manufacturing method for bespoke fluorescent drug labelling. Our collaboration maximises our expertise by producing fluorescent antibiotics, tracking their uptake through biofilm channels, quantifying their dispersion, and measuring their efficacy.

This research presents a step change in measuring antibiotic activity and will provide evidence of channel-mediated drug uptake. This research informs better use of antibiotics to combat antimicrobial resistance (AMR), has multiple beneficiaries owing to the new methods and understanding of drug uptake, and maximises impact by informing the development of channel-targeting antibiotic delivery strategies for wound healing.
02-Jan-2023 - 02-Jan-2024
High-precision chemical mapping in biofilm transport channels to inform better therapies
Rooney, Liam (Principal Investigator) Dietrich, Lars (Co-investigator)
Biofilms are microbial communities linked to over 80% of infections and exhibit remarkable antimicrobial tolerance. We have developed advanced microscopy methods to visualise multi-millimetre-scale biofilms with sub-cellular resolution, providing unique cross-scale 3D overviews. We identified networks of nutrient transport channels and aim to exploit them using targeted biofilm therapeutics. However, we must understand the channel chemical microenvironment to inform new treatments. We present a dual-pronged approach to quantify the oxygen concentration throughout biofilm channel networks using high-resolution oxygen profiling and fluorescent oxygen-nanosensor imaging. These insights will inform the design of a new class of antimicrobial therapeutics to tackle recalcitrant biofilm infections.
13-Jan-2023 - 13-Jan-2024
Surface characterisation of 3D printed lenses for microscopy
Rooney, Liam (Principal Investigator)
We developed a method to 3D print transparent lenses for use in optical instrumentation, with the aim of democratising access to bespoke optics for prototyping and use in low-resource settings. We required a method to accurately calculate the surface curvature, smoothness, and quality in order to determine if our 3D-printed lenses were a viable alternative to their expensive glass counterparts.

We developed, optimised, and applied a super-resolution optical interference method to image the surface of our printed lenses and quantify their curvature and surface quality. This method was implemented with a variety of printed optical elements to assure the quality of and reproducibility of 3D printed optics.
13-Jan-2022 - 01-Jan-2022
Optical methods to measure antibiotic production by Streptomycetes
Rooney, Liam (Principal Investigator) Schniete, Jana Katharina (Principal Investigator)
The genus of bacteria, Streptomyces, produces around 70% of clinically relevant antibiotics in use today. They evolved the ability to secrete these chemical weapons into their local environment to ward off competing microbes and to signal over extended distances. However, understanding and quantifying the secretion of antibiotics directly from the cells into their environment is challenging.
We developed a method based on combining routine confocal fluorescence imaging with standing wave fluorescence microscopy and interference reflection microscopy to measure the volume of extracellular matrix secreted by live streptomycetes in situ. Our method was able to accurately measure the 3D volume of matrix around individual hyphae thanks to a five-fold axial resolution improvement compared to confocal microscopy alone and has translational applications for the study of extracellular matrix and antibiotic production with minimal perturbation to the bacterial cells.
07-Jan-2018 - 10-Jan-2018

More projects

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Contact

Dr Liam Rooney
Research Associate
Strathclyde Institute of Pharmacy and Biomedical Sciences

Email: liam.rooney@strath.ac.uk
Tel: Unlisted